Innovative Ideas, Innovative Web

Month: February 2012

Organizational Behavior is a study that evaluates and elucidates the performance of the workforce acting as individuals and as groups in an organization. It endeavors to affect this knowledge in the successful management of human resources in an organization. Organizational behavior is a discipline that studies the outcome of organizational formation and blueprint, and the changes in the organizational environment on the performance of the workforce. According to Fred Luthans, Organizational behavior is “the understanding, prediction and management of human behavior in organizations.”

Organizational behavior is regarded as an applied science as it offers theoretical concepts that are pertinent to real life situations. The understanding and information gained with regard to the organizational behavior practices of one organization may be applied to numerous organizations. Thus, organizational behavior can be described as the methodical study and application of human characteristics in the management of an organization.

Several sciences like psychology, sociology, philosophy, political sciences, and economics along with research studies contribute to the constant improvement and development of organizational behavior as a scientific discipline.

On the basis of a study of Henry Mintzberg on five executives to determine the set of attributes or behavior of the managers, he grouped 10 roles of the manager intointerpersonal, informational and decisional. In the following paragraph we would be discussing the informational roles in detail.

The informational role considers the fact that all the managers extract certain amount of the information from the other institutions or organizations to make their opinion or decision. Generally this information is extracted by reading publications and periodicals or/and discussing with other people to discover the changes in the public’s tastes, what competitors may be planning, and the like. This role was called as the monitor role by the Mintzberg. The information so collected by the manager is then transferred to the organizational members which is called the disseminator role. Also the managers perform aspokesperson role when they represent the organization to outside.

On the basis of a study of Henry Mintzberg on five executives to determine the set of attributes or behavior of the managers, he grouped 10 roles of the manager into interpersonal, informational and decisional. In the following paragraph we would be discussing the interpersonal roles in detail.

The interpersonal roles expect the manager to perform duties in the symbolic and the ceremonial nature. This could be illustrated through an example: When the factory supervisor gives a group of students, the tour of the plant he or she is acting in a figurehead role. Every manager also has a leadership role. Under the leadership role the manager is expected to hire, train, motivate and discipline the employees. Another role in the interpersonal role is the liaison role. Mintzberg said that liaison role consists of relating to others outside the group or organization. This must be kept in mind that all the interpersonal roles also engross behavioral process. So the three roles that are group under interpersonal roles are:

The third law of Thermodynamics stated that the entropies of substances at 0 k can be assigned the value of zero is the third law of thermodynamics.

The results suggest that all substances have the same entropy at absolute zero. (We will come, shortly; to a more careful statement to this effect generalization is related to another, quite different, observation.

Absolute zero is unattainable: a variety of chemical and physical phenomenon can best be studied at very low temperatures. As a result, techniques have been developed to produce these temperatures. Liquid nitrogen, which boils at 77 k at 1 bar pressure, is now a common industrial substance. Liquid nitrogen can be used to cool helium which can be compressed, cooled and expanded to yield liquid helium is 4 k. temperatures somewhat below 1 K can be obtained by boiling off some of the helium at reduced pressures. Still lower temperatures can be reached by magnetization demagnetization procedures, with liquid helium drawing off the released thermal energy. In this way temperatures down to about 10-4 K have been reached.

From such low temperatures studies comes the realization that any method that can be used to lower the temperature “peters out” as the temperature approaches absolute zero. A summation of the experiences of those who attempt to reach lower and lower temperatures is that the absolute zero of temperature is unattainable.

This generalization is related to the indication that the entropy changes for all reactions would be zero if the reactions occurred at absolute zero. Suppose product substances C and D had, together, greater entropy than reactant substances A and B. suppose this entropy difference persisted through low temperature and on down to absolute zero. The A + B = C + D reaction could then be imagined to occur reversibly at some very low temperature and in doing so to reduce the entropy, and the energy, of the thermal surroundings. If substances had different entropies at absolute zero, temperatures could be reduced to, and below, absolute zero.

Thus there is an equilivalence between the idea that absolute zero cannot be reached and the reorganization that the entropy changes for all reactions would be zero at absolute zero. This conclusion must be restricted to materials that are in the thermodynamically most stable state for this temperature range. (One finds, for example, that many materials are frozen into a metalstable glassy state as the temperature is reduced, and this state may be different, in fact the absolute zero is approached due to the slowness with which the crystalline form is produced. Since the metalstable state cannot be converted directly to the stable state by a reversible process. The entropy of the glassy state could be different, in fact higher, than that of the crystal at absolute zero. Since the metalstable state cannot be converted directly to the stable state by a reversible process, this entropy difference could not be used in attempts to reach absolute zero.)

We come to the chemically useful statement of the third law of thermodynamics, quoted from the classic thermodynamics text by Lewis and Randall. If the entropy of each element in some crystalline state be taken as zero at the absolute zero of temperature the substance has finite positive entropy; but at the absolute zero of temperature the entropy may become zero, and does so become in the case of perfect crystalline substances.

The third law makes it possible to assign entropy values, described as absolute entropies, to chemical compounds. Absolute entropies, most of which were evaluated from calorimetric results and the third law, are included in appendix B.

For revenue maximising managers subject to a target rate of profit constraint, a profit tax will result in reduced output and higher prices. Fig. 10.5 shows profit at each rate of output. Let II represent a target return set by management. Suppose this is the minimum profit acceptable to the owners of the firm. Note, however, that profit is less than II at Q1. Thus managers must act to increase profit at least the target rate of return. Suppose the objective of managers is to maximise revenue subject to the constraint that their firm earn at least its target rate of profit. Output rate Q2 in Fig. 10.5 is the quantity that meets this objective. Any output greater than Q2 yields less than the target rate of profit. Because MR is positive at output rates less than Q2 that generate reduced TR. Corresponding to the output rate Q2 is the price P2‘

Now suppose that a proportional profit tax is imposed. Fig. 10.5 shows that after-tax profit at Q2 is now less than II. Thus, to maximise revenue while satisfying the target profit constraint, output must be reduced to Q3 and the price increased to P3·

There is excess capacity under monopolistic competition as profit maximization takes place at sub-optimal scale. The firm, therefore, has excess capacity of O3Q. Thus, it is sometimes argued that the firms in monopolistic competition are inefficient. However, this is due to the downward sloping demand curve due to which tangency cannot be at minimum AC and does not necessarily implies inefficiency The downward slope of demand curve is due to product differentiation which is of value to the customers For example, Haldiram’s products are likely to cost more than generic brands, because many buyers are willing to pay the extra price as an assurance of quality. In general, the validity or the claim that the monopolistic competition is inefficient depends on a comparison of the benefits derived from product differentiation and the increased costs caused by differentiated products.

Following demand function for sugar in India was estimated with the help of annual time series data for India for the years 1953-54 to 1970-71.

Ds, = -106.7 + 3.80Y -163.3 Ps -11.0Pt

R2 = 0.92

where, Ds = sugar demand in tons

Y = disposable real income in million of rupees

Ps=sugar price index with base 1961–62 = 100

Pt = tea price index with base 1961-62 = 100

R2 = coefficient or determination.*

Suppose the sugar price index increases by 10 from 156 in 1970-71 to 165 in 1975-76, disposable real income and tea price remaining at their 1970-71 level, the demand for sugar in 1975-76 would be less by 1,633 tons than its level in 1970-71 (40,190 tons). Similarly, if sugar manufacturers or the government desire to have, say, a 10,000 tons increase in sugar demand, the alternative ways open to them are to